Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

I suppose this being the last day of the year I should say something about this year. This year blended into the last with much the same occurrences. If you took just about any of my entries and compared them to the previous year or even the year before that you'll find that there is no way to tell one day from the last, that each day is a monotonous running together of nothings. And one day when I'm in my rocking chair upon my porch with grandchildren scattered about I will have nothing to tell them. I will have lived life with nothing to say for myself. "I woke up earlier than my body wanted, then went to work which was awful, I came home and had dinner, I wasted time at the computer playing Neopets or some other form of time-wasting game, then I laid in bed staring at the ceiling for a while before falling asleep, but it wasn't a good sleep for I kept waking up throughout the night so that it was a kind of light sleep. Repeat."

But, I will be a mockery no more, for this year contains the beginning of my plans for freedom. I will have tales to tell, I will have grand adventures. I will be able to tell one day from the next. Instead of my journal being a monotonous succession of depression and angst it will be filled with my many adventures. How long has it been since I've crossed the mountains? How long since I've seen an ocean? How I long to once again see a desert. To be in a motel or in a tent. To be on the road! To just go, somewhere, anywhere. To go out and have fun. Swimming, hiking, exploring! It seems as though centuries have passed since I last explored.

And just because I tend to do this every year:

• January: I turned 23, so old and yet so few accomplishments. I know I'm not really OLD, but I'm older than I would have liked to be with having so many things left undone.

• February: Victor gave me a snuggie for Valentine's Day and I love it so much.

• March: I remember nothing about this month to make it stick out in my memory.

• April: I think Easter was in April? Oh my back hates Easter. Eggs are  heavy

• May: Mine and Victor's 2 year anniversary.

• June: Inventory at work, ugh. It took me 10 hours I believe. 

• July: Victor turned 33. If the thought of being 23 without having accomplishments was bad then I would be going insane if I was 33.

• August: I believe I decided in this month that we were moving. Also, Mara, my little black cat, went missing. We never saw her again. It was also either this month or last that I left a message board I'd been going to for 8 years. I just couldn't stand the current crowd.

• September: I started this blog and we got a little orange kitten we named Bonecrusher, though I have often said since we should have named him Hobbes but by then it was too late. I lost my Plants vs Zombie's saved game in the great Cloud Mishap and haven't had the heart to start over yet.

• October: I made a new Jedi costume which I still need to take pictures of. The remodel started at work.

• November: I didn't cry even once during Thanksgiving time!

• December: Not so lucky this month. The remodel ended.

Other things done this year are:
I started playing Fallout 3 but I started getting dizzy and stopped after about 40 hours or something. I started Manhunt 2 but got stuck on a level back in May and still haven't finished it, pity, cause I really, really like that game. I finally struggled my way through Fellowship of the Ring. I read quite a few NJO and only have about five left before I'm done. I played quite a bit Sims 3 but cycled out of that due to dizziness as well. I played and won Portal, dizziness prevents me from completing the challenges. Won Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, still need to work on challenges. Won Naughty Bear, at least all the episodes if not all the challenges. Went back to Neopets. Played and won Left 4 Dead 2, but I don't play it as often as I should.
 
These last two days were nice. I was a little sick on Wednesday, but we went outside for a half hour thereabouts and I felt much better. Victor shoveled while I stood by and talked with him. The cats came out. Boney was happily bounding in the snow while Atton was clearly upset about the snow's presence. The snow was light and fluffy. It was easy to kick my foot through it and it felt and looked neat to have it go flying like dust. Victor made a path between the cars and it was like a big valley with cliff walls. So I knelt down and made a ledge on one and laid a leaf on it. By then Victor wanted to go in but I told him we had to wait until I made a path for the villagers who lived under the leaf to get down from the cliff side. hehe

I don't think I really did much on Wednesday. I read, I played Naughty Bear.

Yesterday I did quite a bit. I read a lot. I played a Battlefield game for two hours. I made lasagna. I cleaned out the fridge and started to wash it, but my arm got tired so I stopped. I still have the bottom shelf and the drawers to do sometime. I put my yeast in a ziploc and put it in the freezer to extend it's shelf life. I actually used quite a bit of it, I only have about 10 packets left I think? I had bought a bunch back sometime in the spring when it was on markdown really cheap. I also made a red velvet cake mix and put white funfetti frosting on top. I also put some red and green sprinkles on. I took the pan out to the living room and we ate out of the pan. Victor called me a Neanderthal for not getting plates and cutting slices but I don't see that it was an issue. Besides, if he really wanted a plate he could have went into the kitchen and got one.

I am 446 pages into Green Rider 2, and we only have two or three more episodes in the first season of Witch to watch. After that I'm not sure what we'll watch. Either season 2 or we'll switch over to Robotech I guess. I still want to watch Project Runway's season 5 since we never did that and I don't want spoilers for seasons 5 or 6 so I have to be careful in what sewing stuff I read online so I don't spoil anything. It's a stupid show but somehow entertaining at the same time.

We never did get the wood stove piping because I realized I didn't know what size the woodstove is we'll be using. So now that I know Victor's going to price shop today, cause he has to go out to get my check and put it in the bank because of my 11-7 shift today. Then I figure on my next day off we'll get it. That will give me time to clean up the shed anyway.

And now that it's the new year (almost) we'll shift into super savings mode. We've already been saving but now it'll be super savings.

We still need a calender. There weren't any good ones at Borders or Wal-Mart. I'm not even sure what fandom we'd go with this year. I guess whatever we can find. We'll have to check out the mall sometime, maybe there's still some there.

Snowing

Taken around 8:00 this morning. You can't even see the mountains. You can't really see it much in this picture but it was still coming down pretty hard. 

I had to go out to order this morning and driving home was awful because it was just light enough out to see a little and it made my headlights weird, but too dark out for the light to be of any help so I had a lot of trouble figuring out where the road was.

On Monday Bret was all over me about everything. "Do you have more yogurt?" "What about sour cream?" "Stop filling yogurt I need you to fill creamers." "Why are we out of this? We're not out? Why isn't it on the shelf?" Well, that's what happens when you only schedule one person and then have them come in at 11. At one point he told me I'd better get it all filled and faced because Halsey had just left Great Falls and was on his way to our store. I saw right through that one. Every time he wants to make me panic and move faster he tells me corporate's on their way here. I humor him and give it a light face over but I don't take him seriously anymore. If Halsey had the plane and was on his way to the store Bret would call Zhaun in. So if I don't see Zhaun materialize I know Bret's lying.

Later after Bret had left I confided to Julie that I was going to run out of eggs so we called the other store and got them to agree to give me ten cases each of the large dozen and eighteens. We have a few people who live out that way and Nora was working the next day so she agreed to bring them with her when she came into work. She didn't mind at all and said that she would have totally waited till Bret was gone and have Julie help her with it too.

Julie told me that corporate had called to say they weren't going to do the key retailing walk on Tuesday but not to spread that news around because they didn't know if they were just lying. I understand, you want us to get ready for a visit but without panicking about it and they didn't know who would be able to do that.

Tuesday was pretty bad. Bret was mad about all my holes and I explained to him that I hadn't had time to break down the load from Monday and that all my holes were on Monday's load. But he was all upset about everything and totally on the rampage. He picked one item that I was apparently shorted a case on and was all mad about that that I hadn't caught that and then was all mad about me having thrown out the cleaning board to put up the new one. Nevermind that they're identical. Why give me a new board if I'm not supposed to put it up until the end of the next period? So anyway, Bret told me to get with him before I left so he could walk dairy with me. I ended up staying till 3:00 trying to make it look good and get all the holes filled. Problem is I had to break down the whole load and get that thrown in order to do so. I also had to still do my order (which I didn't do till today) and everything else. I still didn't do any scan outs. I haven't all week. I haven't had time. I thought they learned back in June that you can't have one person a day and expect them to keep up. Anita noticed I was upset and when she asked about it I couldn't help it, I started crying. Figures just then Mike the CSM walked by and wanted to talk with me and make it all better but I refused to talk with him. Anita understood completely though, she's been in the same boat often enough. In fact from what I've seen of Anita in the last few months she's about caved in completely. She doesn't even have the spark of anger she usually has when she's upset, right now she's just down trodden and crushed. I wonder what will become of her. Oh, and when I did go get Bret none of his anger was there and he was just his normal cheerful self, said he's sure dairy looks great, that I was fine to go home. hm. His "the sky is falling" ploy didn't work Monday so I guess getting mad at me and expecting the impossible (which Anita says is why he demands the impossible) worked wonderfully for him.

Anyway, I took a bath and I tested out my new bath fizzies I made. I really like it. I made a tea of green tea and vanilla caramel tea and drank that while I took my bath. The cats were so cute. Usually when we take baths the cats come up and peer in at us like, "Are you going to die?" they're so concerned about us being covered in so much water. Today I had a cat on either corner of the tub and they were both just watching me, and they sipped at the water now and again. Atton stumbled and almost fell in and he got his tail all wet, which always concerns him greatly and he sadly picks at his wet tail with his claws. Sometimes I like to dunk his tail just to watch his reaction.

I'm about 300 pages into Green Rider 2. I need to find out from Borders if they're going to have book 4 on release day or if I'll have to special order it.

Five Months

Today makes it five months exactly until I quit. So close and yet so far.

Yesterday I slept in by accident. Apparently I'd set my alarm for 6pm by accident so I woke up at 6:55. oops. Oh, well. Usually they wouldn't have noticed but Zhaun did this time, he didn't care. I simply skipped the lunch they'd scheduled me to make it up.

I don't know how they expect me to do everything myself. I have to break down the freight, work the freight, offload trucks, do any extras Zhaun has for me, fill all the shelves and holes, sweep and mop the floor, and do any other cleaning or preparing for the visit tomorrow. And I have to do all my regular stuff like ordering and markdowns and such. And I just hope Zhaun's left by time I get to work today because otherwise I fear he'll tell me to come in at 4 or 5 tomorrow which I can't do because I don't get off until 7 tonight. It's a struggle to unwind and get to bed after a 7:00 shift and I always end up staying up until 9 at least. I can't be getting up at 3AM after staying up till 9. It's just a key retailing walk.

I don't know what to do with myself. I have about 20 minutes until 10:00, I go in at 11, I'm done with everything I could want to do online and have been doing pointless nothings for the past hour or two. I feel I should do something but why. And what. I also need to eat something even though I'm not hungry, otherwise I'll be hungry later.*sigh* Five months, though!

I figure on Wednesday we'll look around at prices on stuff, maybe wood stove piping since we need that before winter's too far over. And I want to look in the thrift stores and see what I see there, I have a little list of things to keep an eye out for. We also need to get a calender. And the new Death Troopers book Star Wars: Red Harvest came out today. So I need to pick that up.

My neck and arm keep hurting but Victor can't find anything wrong with them. He says it's probably just where the nerve was damaged for so long it's regrowing or healing or the nerves aren't used to feeling and they're getting used to it again. Or something. I'm sure it'll get better. Probably not since I'm the one who's going to have to break down and work the freight all week.

The rest of Christmas day was pretty nice. We had taco casserole and watched UHF. We were so comfortable while watching it. Victor put his head on my lap and fell asleep and we were sprawled and cuddly and it was just so nice. I was so relaxed and content. It was like a preview of what life is going to be like later on.

Christmas Day

These first two were taken from my porch around 9:30ish.

Boney played under the tree. I believe that's a piece of plastic grocery bag in his mouth.

We had sausage and cinnamon rolls for breakfast while we watched Grinch.

We put together the cat's present, which was this climb cube thing with dingly balls hanging off it. They love it.

We opened our presents, I got Victor the entire Robotech: Macross Saga, it's all 36 episodes on dvd. And a Michael Jackson car window sticky, toe-stand version. I got the Star Wars Lego Dictionary and an NJO. The red bag on the bottom of that picture up there is full of chocolate lumps of coal, from Santa to Victor.

Then we made tea and went to play some Atari. I got stubborn and insisted on beating Victor at Galaxian, which I eventually did by 4,000 points. I even broke my old high score of 15,000, now I'm at 17,150.

In a bit here I'm going to make us a taco casserole.

Merry Christmas

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play.
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of Peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how as the day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
Had roll'd along th' unbroken song
Of Peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair, I bow'd my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song,
Of Peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With Peace on earth, good will to men."

Bah Humbug

Work:
I worked from 6:00 till sometime around 3:15ish.

Bonnie had her goodies laid out. Every year she has stuff for the vendors. Various cookies and candies she makes. And her fudge. Her fudge is awesome. I once said that when you die and go to heaven that that's what you eat all day. I'm just too shy to ask for her recipe. Other things I snacked on were a slice of some kinda bread with nuts in it, a piece of white candy shaped like a snowflake, and some kinda circular thing that was chocolate and marshmallow with coconut on it. I brought home some fudge for Victor.

Bret was at work today. Which made me very upset. Usually it's Julie on holidays. Well, I was so scared all day and felt kinda sick every time I saw him. I was out of regular kroger egg nog. And sour cream. Seriously, I sold 132 of just the regular 16oz kroger sour cream yesterday. That is insane. Apparently it was wide-spread cause all the stores seemed to be out of sour cream today. When I ran out of the sale stuff they were buying out the meadowgold and daisy. I was facing over so thinly I was down to just about one facing on every shelf when the truck finally rolled in at 3:00. I was also running out of eggs. For some reason I was out of both oakdell brands, and almost out of jumbo and I was out of medium. And I had two private selection purple label left, and was nearly out of naturally preferred.

This has been my best year yet. It took the entire holiday season but it finally happened and the straw fell that broke my back. In other words, I broke down and wept. I made an excuse to go back by the compactor (only space available for personal use, as Dustin was there so my cooler was out) and broke down and cried. I was scared someone would find me so I tried to make it stop quickly, but I broke down again later when I discovered the warehouse had decided to plus me out a pallet of yoplait.

This is the event that made me cry:
Woman, "Do you have any 18 packs?"
Me, "Yeah, I'll go get some." (the shelf was empty)
Woman, "Wait, are they kroger brand or do you have anything else?"
Me, "No, the only 18 packs we carry are kroger."
Woman, *sour look*
Me, "Is that ok?"
Woman, in rich snobby voice, "No, it is NOT ok. How many cases of Hedstroms do you have in the back?"
Me, lying, "Well, they pretty much ship truck to shelf so I only have one case."
Woman, "Oh, I need three cases."
Me, "...0_0.... Well, they come 24 to a case..."
Woman, "I'll just take the rest off the shelf."
Me, "...they don't deliver again till late next week. I'll be out until then."
Woman, "...ok? I need to buy them."
Me, "Fine, I guess no one else would want to buy them."
So I got her the case and she acted all polite and happy and cheerful and said thanks in this, "I know I'm destroying your life and possibly your job but I'm happy cause I'm buying all the eggs I can possibly get my greedy little hands on that would cause you the most problems" voice. She did leave some on the shelf, thankfully. But I was just so upset over how she just didn't care about the other customers, about wiping me out. If you NEED 72 dozen eggs for Christmas maybe you need to kinda, you know, think about this earlier than December 24th??? And because she decided to be a rich snob she had to pay 1.99 per dozen, instead of the 1.25 for the kroger brand that are the exact same thing, probably. I mean, a chicken's a chicken. I'm sure white laying hens are the same country-wide. I mean, the event in and of itself isn't enough to cause me to break down, but it on top of everything and the fact that I finally snapped and got mad at someone for wiping me out of something just, like I said, was the final straw. Though, like I said, I lied, so I had one more case in the back, so that was really good.

Yesterday I had a funny moment, though, about eggs:
Woman, "Oh, I don't want this one, it has chicken poop on it."
Me, "Yeah, they come that way, it's natural."
But she insisted on having another one instead. What, you never owned chickens before?

It was super insanely busy. It's like no one has families they want to be with. I mean, this wasn't just a husband picking up a bag of dinner rolls or a single person buying a tv dinner, no, this was day before Thanksgiving insanity. Today is how day before Thanksgiving is normally.

I did strain my arm yesterday, but it feels much better today.

Bret told me good job, he appreciates my hard work and shook my hand. It's always so surprising to me when he tells me these things. Sometimes I wonder if he makes it up to look good. I always assume he's on the verge of firing me or something. I have a story from the day before Thanksgiving a few years ago. It was 1:00 and I was leaving and Zhaun said I couldn't because he'd told Bret I was staying till 3. (this was back when I went in at 5 instead of 6) Did he even bother asking me about this? Course not, no matter if I had family to go see or plans or dinner or something, sure, just tell Bret I had agreed to stay. So I did, and just before 3 I was in the office and Bret was on the phone with someone from produce and was saying good job, you can leave a little early today, have a happy thanksgiving. A few minutes later I was leaving and he was all, "What do you think you're doing?" I told him I was going home and he said, "No you're not." and I said that it was 3:00 and he was all grumbly and upset and walked away muttering to himself. And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the stories I could tell about him. But every so often he shocks me with a "good job" or "we really appreciate you".

Food:
Victor made us dinner of some kinda roast thingie, potatoes, and dinner rolls (hawaiian ones). I was dubious about the meat, but it was actually really good. The potatoes were pretty bad. Victor had them in a pan of water, I guess to soften them up so he could push the peels off, and he complained that my peeler was dull and unusable. Turns out he was holding it upside down and trying to peel with the back. hehe, dunno why he didn't just grab a knife, I remember my grandpa peeling with a knife. He'd already cut the potatoes into chips so it was really hard to fix it and get them peeled.

It's almost over

9 1/2 hours without a break. I was about to go on lunch when the truck showed up. It was already 11:30 by that point. When I got done getting the backroom ready it was noon, then Bret told me to fill eggs, giving me this look like I was super stupid for having not done that already. And I knew we were out of sour cream and coffee mate on the shelf and that butter had to be low. I knew by time the truck was over and I'd filled what would keep Bret happy for a half hour it would be 2 or 2:30 and by that point why bother. I ended up working 7:00-4:30ish.

Chad, "You ready for Christmas?"
Me, "Yep."
Chad, "Me too."
To myself I said: Ready for it to be over.
Chad, "I'm ready for it to be over."
Ha, read my mind.

Customer, "Do you have any more butter?"
Me, "We have lots of butter. Which kind did you want?"
Well. Be more specific next time.

We have a promotion going where you get free eggs if you buy two packs of sausage so we have a display in the egg case and while I was filling eggs this woman was asking where the large dozen eggs were and I happened to have a full case sitting on my wheeler, which was between us, so I gestured at it and said, "In this big box here."

Customer, "Where's the pie shells?"
Me, "Frozen or refridgerated?"
Customer, "The pre-made ones."
Me, "Aisle 3." (baking aisle)
Customer, *stares at aisle 3 for a few moments* "No... like Marie Calanders..."
Me, "Oh, frozen, that's in our frozen section." *points*

My Christmas spirit has been squashed out of me. By the cruelty of customers. By the repetitious Christmas music, which, btw, we went straight Christmas music yesterday. By a store director who stomps around like an angry bear waiting to rip the head off of any poor employee who happens to be nearby. By working as hard and fast as I can with a back in pain and a semi-working arm and it still not being enough.

Something happened to my knees and there's red rashy spots on the insides of them. They stang when I sank into the bath earlier and they kinda hurt now. Also, with my arm, last night Victor picked me up and somehow we managed to pull my arm and it started tingling and Victor says the tension in my neck was gone (constant tension, we assumed it was scar tissue buildup) and so today my arm's been functional, but grudgingly so. I don't think we hurt it, I think we fixed it and it was trying to heal today, which of course it couldn't because of the work I have to do.

What does "new old fashioned" mean?? It makes no sense at all. Is it what you'd call the era of people just entering middle age? They're just entering the time of life where young people consider you old fashioned, but you're young enough that old people think what you do is new? Whatever, it's a stupid song and I don't care if Miss Squeeky "I couldn't sing to save my life" wrote the song she shouldn't be the one singing it.

And just because you want to be special doesn't mean you have to mess with the flow of a song to make it your own. There are set tunes, follow them. No one wants to hear you sing at half the song's speed just as well as no one wants to hear you sing it twice as fast. If one part is slow and another fast you don't have to go backwards.

Also, the Favorite Things song has NOTHING to do with Christmas. Oooo, it mentions snowflakes once in one line of the lyrics. So it MUST be a Christmas song. *eye roll* They sang the song cause the little girl was scared of the thunder storm.

Our Inventories are on February 1st and May 12th. Thusly I can't take my personal days when I normally do which means I can't use it to prepare the area for our new house.I have to use my days by the 15th. Which means I can't take them after inventory because sometimes Bonnie needs my help in the days following an inventory. I also can't take them about two or three weeks before Inventory. But I can't take them in the few weeks before Easter or the week after. So I have no idea when I'm going to be able to take them. I guess first I have to find out when Easter is next year.

Oh, towards the top of the list of things you never want to see is this: You never want to be going down the hallway where the offices are, following your store director to ask him for the keys to the backdoor only to have him stop half-hidden by the doorframe to his office so he could stand there and, ah... readjust himself... He didn't know I was watching, and I waited in the hall for a moment or two so he wouldn't know how close behind him I was so he wouldn't be embarrassed.

And speaking of Bret, I was filling eggs again at one point when he asked if I had any more yogurt and I said to him that I was trying! I figured I'd fill some coffee mate and sour cream before doing yogurt so he wouldn't come yelling at me for being out of ad items. Then Steve came in and said Bret told him to fill yogurt. Well, I'm sorry but I thought ad items were more important than Bret's flights of fancy. Later when Dustin was there he took some yogurt out to fill it too. Then Bret came by and got mad at them and said we couldn't have wheelers on the floor and they all had to go into the back.

Dustin asked for a lot of time off next week and the week after so Zhaun got mad at him and gave him 16 hours next week, which gives me five days. However, we have corporate coming on Tuesday so he gave me a morning shift on Tuesday and said I'd have Wednesday off instead, so I hope this means he's leaving Thursday alone cause I was supposed to have Thursday off. Two days off together would be nice.

I broke a fingernail on Monday and another today. This one was even worse and there is almost no white part left and the topmost layer of pink is cracked off a bit too (not all the way down but only the first bit).

Dunno what it is about sour cream but this year it's flying off my shelves. I blamed Oprah till I fount out she hadn't said anything. Odd. Normally when I suddenly, randomly sell out of something (30 cases in under two days?) I later find out she came out with a lovely new recipe for something. I can't wait for that horrid woman to go away, wasn't her show supposed to be over by now? I just know she went shopping once and the store was out of her favorite yogurt and she swore vengeance on all dairy managers everywhere, which would be why she every so often picks a random item no one would suspect and uses it in some recipe or other. Either way, it's insane.

We were also super busy today. It was worse than the day before Thanksgiving!

it's dry here

I made green tea bath bombs. I'll take a picture later, my feet are on the heater vent, which is very conveniently placed under my desk. It was a lot of fun making them. I can't wait to do it again. It's baking soda and citric acid along with some oils and water, and, of course, green tea. The citric acid was hard to find. It's sold in bulk at one of the health food stores, which is where we found it. I used jojoba oil, rosemary eo, roman chamomile eo, and a tiny bit of candy cane eo. I slashed open tea bags for the green tea, I used six bags. So I'll have to see if it's cheaper to buy the big boxes at the dollar store or buy online, if this is something I want to do a lot of. Anyway, it looked kinda like that oreo cake mix stuff when it was in the bowl. I added a little bit too much water at the end, but that's ok. It all worked out well. I made them into balls and came out with 14 of them, the recipe said it made 7 so I guess I made them small. Oh, well. The recipe said it could take up to a week to dry depending on your humidity levels. Being in the north/west in the middle of winter means mine dried overnight. So today I'm going to package them. I'm going to put them in ziplocs. I got name tags in our Christmas markdowns at work that I'll write the ingredients on and who they're too and stuff. Then I'll give them out tomorrow. I'm giving a bag to Bonnie and one to Anita. I'll also make one up for Emily and one for Becky, and I'm sure my mom would like to have one too. That's ten balls if I give two each. That leaves four, two for me and two extra.

Work:
Yesterday I worked 8:00-4:30, and Victor brought me taco bell for lunch.

I had to do the grocery truck yesterday, which we normally don't get them on Tuesdays. And we did returns yesterday too. While I was doing that Bret freaked out about the eggs not being full and made Steve help in dairy for an hour or two. Which helped a lot, actually.

Today was 7:00-3:30, and I had ramen for lunch. No trucks, though as I left the parking lot I saw the truck pulling in. Since we had extra time today I went ahead and got some reorganization done in the cooler. I took out one of the backstock shelves, since we keep the yogurt backstock on wheelers now we don't need one of them. And then I moved everything down so we have more room in the milk backstock, which we badly need now that we have the Kreameries milk. btw, they put the Kreamery milk on sale and I didn't know so I'm out of 2% and nearly out of skim. Thanks.

And Dustin's getting his hours back by coming in early, as usual. An hour yesterday, a half hour today.

I saw a draft of next week's schedule and it's weird. One person a day all week (mostly), and everyone's cut a day. Zhaun did this last new years too. Because we get paid for new years eve and new years so Zhaun cuts everyone a day to save hours and no one minds cause their pay checks aren't taking a hit. I would rather work the full 5 days and get the super huge paycheck but oh well. At least put my days together, he did it again where it's Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.

Boba Flake

I made this using thes instructions. I eliminated the clone trooper and made just Boba Fett. :D I think it might look better if every other head was gone. It looks too cluttered right now. Course maybe that's why it should have the clone helmets, to break it up a little.

With it having been so cloudy all day and the weather predicting it as being cloudy all night I doubt I'll get to see the lunar eclipse. Oh, well. It would have been neat.

Work:

I found out that out inventory is most likely moved to February, and that we'll have another one in May. You know, it is very much as though the world is getting in one last kick before I go hide in the woods. May. I hope this doesn't ruin when I get to take my personal days. I have to take them before May 15th, Julie will see to it even if Zhaun doesn't want to.

Corp says we can't reset the price of the half gallon orange juice they plussed me out a ton of. So I either have to shrink it out or mark it down with ISM. So we have a display in the egg case and we have a sign on it. We're going to wait a few days and then see about marking some of it down. 168 knows of our plight and has agreed not to order any more and if they need some they'll call us and we'll throw a case or two on the next truck going that way.

I'm going to have to start using those stupid signs. Zhaun was adamant about it. They say "date change" and "use first" and stuff. I'm supposed to put them in the milk crates to let people know when there's a new date. Cause I guess they figure we're all complete retards and don't know how to rotate. You wouldn't have the position of dairy manager, or be in dairy at all in fact, without being capable of rotating. He says that if he has to send a bagger or someone back to fill milk that it will tell them which product to use first. Cause I guess they're scared the baggers will climb up on top of the milk that's in front to get to the dates in the back or something. There's even a whole instruction manual on how to use the signs.

And he wants me to start going one facing on the bottom shelf and two on the second. His excuse is that we now have that very top shelf and we don't need more facings on the bottom. This is something corp's been wanting us to do for a while now. It's stupid. It's completely idiotic. I told Zhaun this. I told him on the 1% and skim I could do it, but not the 2%! I sell way too much 2% to keep one of my shelves minimally stocked. I had hoped when they were here and noticed that that second shelf was almost always empty because of that that they would realize their mistake. I guess not. He kept saying what if we get a surprise visit. Yeah how often does that happen? Oh it happened once? In the last seven years I've worked there? I think I'll take my chances. I think he agreed that I didn't have to do the two facings on the second to bottom shelf unless they were coming, but I'm not certain. Why do I have those shelves if I can't use them? Shouldn't I keep them full so that the customers can buy the product? I have a perfect rotation system going on the milk, the problem is that I'm the only one on the program and I'm the only one who's followed it. I've been rotating the milk a certain way since Greg was in charge of dairy. And it works, it really does. No one sees reason though, and that's really odd. I've had one night person who's understood the concept, Scott, and no one else has been able to figure it out.

I asked Julie why I was taking a lunch and she said so we'd have coverage later in the day. I'm not sure why it's suddenly so important to have someone there till 9 or 10 at night and why mornings are no longer important. I hate to admit it but I did get a lot done today. I didn't fill a whole lot but I did break down the load. It was a really small load though, it took 20 minutes to offload the entire deli/frozen load that had a balance of grocery on it. Helped that I didn't have to empty the hallway. I put all the freight in the back room because meat dept's cooler has been a disaster. You can barely get in the door. They cleaned up a lot over the weekend though, which is good.

As for how my lunch went, it went ok I guess. I sat inside because it was snowing and I didn't feel like putting on my big coat and freezing in the car. So I sat on the nice new barstool at the counter by the window in the service deli area. We never had that before, before it was just tables. Now we have two or three big tables (really, they can fit, like, eight people now, the old ones fit four. And then there's the counter with I don't know how many chairs. It was going rather nice until meat and produce went on lunch and filled up the table that was behind me and to the right. Then I got shy and fidgety. Still a complete waste of time though.

cherry pie

I made this today. I used this pie crust recipe. This was the first time I made a lattice top. It was a lot easier than I would have thought. A little time consuming, but really fun. I very much enjoyed doing it. I brushed the top with an egg yolk that had powdered sugar in it. So it's not actually very burnt. And the bubbling cherries cooled down and stopped bubbling. I used two cans of Kroger extra cherry pie filling.

Right now Victor's in the other room making feziccini (sp?) spaghetti, and he has Moonwalker on. We were watching it some earlier when Victor was washing some dishes, but we turned it off to do other things and now he's finishing it.

bragging

I know I haven't posted in a few days. Oh, well.

Work's been the same. Worked some overtime. Left early on Saturday. Best I can figure I probably have about 48 1/2 hours for last week? That's not bad, really. More than the week before. I really do love 500 dollar paychecks, but I do kinda want to be home. I just tell myself that the money will pay for our house.

We apparently are going to have an inventory next month. They're supposed to tell us 6 months in advance. Bonnie absolutely needs to start getting ready a month beforehand because out of everyone she has one of the most important jobs during an inventory. Making sure all the bills are paid, getting vendors to order light, etc etc, I don't know what all but she's usually cooped up in the office for 8-10, sometimes 12 hours on inventory and one year she had to do it again the next day and a little the day after. Oh, I hate inventory. No one ever gets it when I say I need to be there before noon, but they always schedule me for 1:00 or something stupid like that and I always, without fail, wind up working till 10 or midnight. My longest shift ever was on an inventory, I worked 13 1/2 hours. And then they make me come in at something stupid like 8 or 9 the day after and I'd much rather be there at 7 or something. Plus I was kinda really hoping we wouldn't have another inventory before I left because I haven't been so great at scanning out everything... I'll have to play it right to create a lot of positive shrink in the next month.

My schedule for next week is all weird. And it's Bret and Julie's fault. They got the brilliant idea to change the schedule after Zhaun wrote it. Never a good idea. I now work Mon-Fri and I take a lunch. What??? Why do they want me taking lunches!? It didn't work out the last time they tried it. It's a total and complete waste of time! That's like asking me, would I rather spend a half our of my time every day at work or would I rather spend a half our of my time every day with my husband at home with my cats relaxing? It's stupid. Plus they always call me to check when I'm on lunch, even though they know I'm on lunch. And of course a truck shows up while I'm gone. It's just bad. I, of all people, can't be running out on lunch every day. Plus what do I do for a half hour! I'm not sitting in the breakroom for a half hour. I'm going to my car. Where it's freezing cold. I don't have time to run home. It's stupid. But I think they're testing Dustin. They cut his hours and I guess they're going to see when he comes to work. He always comes in early by two or three hours every day. And he always gets his 40  hours, mommy dearest sees to that. So I won't complain. I'll do it and hope they see reason next week. Still counting the days till I'm gone!

So me and Victor went to see the new Tron on Friday. It was good. I still didn't really understand the computer aspects of it very well, and Victor says there is a LOT more going on than most people will get. The music was great. And it was in 3D. It was Victor's first 3D movie. (mine was Alice in Wonderland back in March) And he was amazed. He had asked me what 3D was like, and I couldn't explain it. Now that he knows he agrees that you can't really explain it. It just is awesome. I got to see the POTC4 trailer. eeee!!!! Even Victor agrees that it looks pretty good. We saw a Cars 2 trailer, and it didn't look very good. The first one was cute, but this one just looks overdone. We saw the trailer for the new Transformers movie, and when Victor realized Unicron (sp???) was going to be in it he was suddenly excited about the movie series again. (he normally can't stand Shia LeBouf or whatever his name is, and I agree with him on that) There was also a Mars Needs Moms trailer which I'd actually already seen online because I saw the title of the movie and went, o_0, so decided to check it out, and it was just as silly and stupid as I remembered it. Anyway, back to the movie. There is a spoiler for the movie that Victor figured out a long time ago in the action figure aisle. I figured it out at the early part of the dinner scene. But if I hadn't know there was a spoiler and hadn't known who or what it pertained to I would not have thought about it enough to figure it out on my own. So to get a better feel for things, since I didn't remember the first movie much, we watched the first one last night. Victor was a little upset the new movie didn't credit or thank Intellivision but it thanked Atari. We sat through the entire credits. We do that a lot. The music is nice and sometimes you get a bonus for watching all the way through and there's something afterward.

Oh, and the video game for the movie, on Friday night one of the stars from the movie was online playing the game with people, one star for each console. The PC version got the guy who played Tron. Which made Victor really happy since he only has the PC version. Victor keeps getting banned from the game for "cheating" because he's just that good at it. He always gets unbanned after a few hours because they find that he's not cheating, he's just that good. He's in the top ten worldwide. Anyway, he beat the Tron actor 33/50 and got to keep his lightcycle, which is the old style. This made Victor very happy. I actually need to sit down sometime and see what the differences are between the old and new styles because I don't remember there being any. I'm sure there are because old vs new is kind of a big deal I guess.

After we watched that movie last night Victor took a nap while I played some Atari 2600. I did pretty good. I beat my old high score at PacMan. Usually I'm pretty bad at that, but last night I got 2,510! My old high score was 1,400. I didn't come anywhere close to my Turmoil high score though, my high score there is 71,000, last night I made 47,000. Which I guess is a little over half-way there. And on Millipede I got 84,000, *sigh* I just can't seem to break 100,000 anymore. Click the picture to make it bigger. That's my high score on Millipede. 128,151. Only 20,000 points beneath the world record. Yes, I know people with bots on emulations can get 999,999 but that doesn't count, as it is cheating. And I know if you're patient you can go spider killing on the first screen and get a pretty high score, but I consider that a different form of game-play. The way I play is by hunting millipedes, though I certainly go for the spiders every chance I get. This picture was taken on July 23, 2008. And like I said, I can't seem to break 100,000 anymore, I average 80-90,000 these days. Usually I use the sega genesis controller, as seen in the second picture, but last night I was using the regular joystick.

I was going to make green tea bath bombs for my christmas present to people this year but I don't have the ingredients and I don't know if the health food store is open on Sundays. It takes less than a week for them to dry. All I need is citrus oil and jojoba oil. I have everything else. Maybe some new baking soda would be nice, mine expired this summer. It was still usable last I checked though. Wish they came in smaller packages because I really don't use it very often. Though if I get into the bath bomb thing I will.

I really have to start taking more milk baths or the powdered milk I have will go bad. I need to check it, maybe I'll use it today. It'll be that or lavender. If I had lavender EO I'd drop some into a milk bath, but I don't. I have rose EO though, so maybe I'll use that. At least I think I have rose. I know for sure I have chamomile, though, and that's relaxing enough. I need to get some lavender EO. I really like what milk baths do for your skin. It makes my skin so creamy pale. The kind of pale I want to be. I don't want to be sickly pale, I want to be creamy pale. You know, I don't want to be pallid.

 This was posted at my mom's journal, she took it the other day and I think it's really cute.

Well I guess I'd better have breakfast. I'm currently on a box of cocoa pebbles. I'm not very interested but it was the first thing that caught my eye the other morning.

Re-Grand Opening

Something I've been meaning to say but keep forgetting. On Friday I overheard Bret complaining about night crew taking breaks. He said something about "take a break, take a permanent break. So concerned about it, they take one every two hours on the hour." This isn't the first time either, I heard him once before fighting with Zhaun about night crew's breaks and Zhaun had to point out that it kinda was law that they get their breaks. But then night crew doesn't always work as hard as they seem to. They like to fish for overtime money, and rumor has it Bret came in in the middle of the night once to see what they do when he's not there and he found them playing basketball with some shrink wrap and the garbage cans. Not sure how true that is though.

I got up at 3:00 and made it into work at 3:39. It wasn't too bad actually. Corporate kept freaking out about me getting some wheelers of eggs and juice ready to put on the back aisle for the free giveaway. I knew we reopened at 8:00 so I knew I had time. Around 6:30 they did it themselves. Around 7:00 they were fidgety and double checking and I almost had to remind them not to roll them onto the floor yet.

Anita has four wheelers of product in the cooler and it's just awful. I don't have room for that.

So anyway, around 7:30 Bret paged everyone to the front. We gathered and Halsey, our company president was there. They sure patch him up for the videos they torture us with. He looked very, very old and decrepit. I kept wondering if he would be able to stand for the entirety of Bret's speech. In the videos you can't see his veins or anything. Anyway, as I went towards the front I saw one of the corporate guys with a guitar and a santa hat doing christmas songs. And with every step I took I felt the life leaving my eyes. A deader version of myself stood in the group dreading what kind of stupidness we'd have to endure. Visions of us caroling the first of the customers came to mind, but it was not to be. Bret spoke and said blah blah, thank corp (everyone claps, I clapped lightly), thank remodel team (everyone claps, I clapped decently), thank the employees (everyone claps, I clap hard). Then someone said we should thank Bret (everyone claps, I clap lightly). We'll shut down a competitor (most people clap, I didn't). Rhonda was her super annoying self again. The way she acts I wouldn't be surprised to see her searching his coat for a stray hair to add to a life-size doll of him.

Anyway, they let us wander back to what we were doing. I went and hid with Bonnie out back while the first of the customers had to suffer through corp being over bearing at them. The compactor was full. So full that people had kept piling stuff on top till it was practically falling out of it. Now, let me describe our compactor. There is a door in the wall, and then a ledge, a kind of shelf, that's a few feet long. Then it drops off into the dumpster-bin thing. So that tells you how full it was. Bonnie called in to have it picked up today, and we had to clear room for the people to get down to it so they could empty it. And then Zhaun came back and got the stuff pulled out that people had piled up and me and Bonnie picked it up. After a bit of messing with it we found that there was a metal rack display that had jammed it. Blaine from produce (whom I can't stand) jumped in and fixed that for us. But you'd think, wouldn't you, that people would stop throwing in garbage after it was full? It's always amazing to find the compactor so full people are setting things on the ledge and walking off. No one can push a button and crush the compactor? Me and Bonnie are the only ones who are capable of spending 15 minutes unjamming it after people neglect to crush their garbage?

Service deli and bakery brought back their garbage and Bonnie had them take it out back behind the store. One of the bags must have dropped a soda can cause I saw the bakery lady kick it under the bread racks. I looked at her. She looked at me. I stared at her expectantly. She knelt down and retrieved it. Bonnie was proud of me.

Zhaun had me call Dustin and ask him to come in at noon so I could go home. Yay!

We gave away a fair amount of eggs and orange juice before I left. We might run out of orange juice, and I don't know how. I didn't see any of the calcium that I'd ordered and I ordered a good 15 cases. I need to check into that.

All the corporate people left by 9:00. We were really super slow. Our re-grand opening was a miss. We didn't really advertise. We had it announced in our ad.... which came out today. We scared a lot of them away, especially yesterday. Yesterday I saw a lot of upset customers. And there was no suspense. We should have been closed during the remodel, or at least all of yesterday. It was sooooooo nice this morning, working for 4 1/2 hours without any customers around. You can't imagine how soothing it was.

So the creameries place had a table set up and they were offering samples and telling people how great their local milk is. They claimed that since it was not homogenized that it was better for digestion, that the particles weren't broken up and that's why. That ringed wrong for me so I called Victor to ask him and he said that the moment you shook the container (and they do say "cream on top please shake before using" on them) the particles would break up. And later when Fred came in I asked him. He knows more about milk than anyone else I know. He says they're wrong. He also gave me some dirt on them. They've actually been kicked out of places before for having a too high bacteria count in their milk. Basically they use unclean milk, lowest quality, and pasteurize it hoping that'll kill everything. Fred says if pasteurizing alone kills all the bacteria then milk could last forever. He's just waiting for someone to get sick and sue them. They were also kicked out of some state dairy organization for not playing by the rules, so they can set their pricing to anything without following any state standard, which is why they're so incredibly cheap (for a name brand). Also, their samples were not kept in my cooler so I don't know how they kept them cold all day long unless there was a cooler and I just didn't see it, which is entirely possible since I hadn't really looked well.

Just as I was about to leave we got a delivery of shelving and I got Julie's keys to let the delivery guy in. And then I took them back to her, she was in the office. I tried the door handle, it was locked. I knocked. No answer. I tried the handle again. Suddenly laughter and "Hi, Barb!" came from within. I was confused until they opened the door and showed me that they have a security camera pointed down the hallway now and could see who was in front of their door. Proud and boastful, as well as amused by my surprise, they showed me the rest of the cameras in all the backrooms. I will restrain from saying where they are specifically, but there is one in my cooler. Eek!!! They can watch me! I'll need to start acting better. I thought over the last several days and I can't think of anything right off that I did that was embarrassing. But you know how there's the you you act when you're amongst others and then there's the you you are at home and alone where no one sees you? I act like I'm at home alone when I'm in my cooler. I'll inform Bonnie where all the cameras are tomorrow. There's one in an area I often used for things like clipping an annoyingly long nail or during the summer I'd use it to wipe sweat from under my shirt, so no one would see me. So I am sad to see I can't use that spot anymore. Without a bathroom in the back it's hard to find places to do personal things like that. And you can't fix your nails in the bathroom because it echoes. I figure I break enough nails that I can always claim it was broken and I was fixing it so it wasn't sharp anymore. I don't do it often, but occasionally one will kinda creep up on me and start rubbing wrong in my glove from being too long. I try to keep them a little past the tips of my fingers. You guys have seen pictures of my hands so you know. But I am shy.

They were handing out coupons for the free food (muffins, eggs, orange juice, and sausage) and maps of the store so I got them so I could get the free stuff. And the map's interesting too. It's wrong though. It shows sea food as being where wall deli is and beverages as being where the beer is. As if beer and wine are the only type of beverage in existence. I think they made a poor choice of using the remodel schematic for the map as it clearly shows a map of the safe room and the pharmacy backrooms/offices. Hey! I just noticed, pharmacy has their own bathroom!!! No fair. Anyway, another of our "for being such a great store we're ripping off other people's ideas" things is the special lighting over produce.

It's weird. It's only 6:16. I feel I should be in bed. But I don't have to for two more hours. I wonder what I should do. From lack of sleep a lot of video games are out. Naughty Bear would be fun but it's camera isn't the greatest if you get dizzy easy. And I don't know what other games I'd want to play. I really should finish Force Unleashed II but I am totally not motivated. I don't know why, I loved the first one. The story of the first one was great, I even bought and read both the novel and the comic book. I liked the Dagobah levels of II, but otherwise... eh. It's kinda slapped together. And now I'm chasing Boba Fett around and I fear I'll have to fight him. Canon says I can't kill him. But it's always hard for me to fight Boba in a video game because he's so special to me. I do it, though. There's not a lot of games that you fight him in, though. There's Shadows of the Empire for N64. There's Demolitions for PS1. I believe he's in Masters of Teras Kasi for PS1(?) but I never owned that.

I could make something warm to drink, either tea or hot chocolate, and read my book. But I'll be doing so much of that after we move that I feel almost guilty like I should do something more power consuming, like play the 360. But then again I do need to finish these books before the February 1st release date of Green Rider 4. But I am about 100 pages into book 2, with another 500 pages to go, and then book 3 is, like, 700 pages. And it's the middle of December, so I have a month and a half. And it's taken me from the week after Deathly Hallows to read book 1, so that would be about three and a half weeks give or take a few days. But that's right during our busiest time of year. January will be fairly slowish. But let's assume on four weeks just because this one's longer by 100 pages thereabouts. January 12th, and then that gives me almost three weeks for book 3. Yeah, maybe I should go read.

Oh, to also cheapen our grand opening our other store nearby was also celebrating with the same freebie giveaway and sales. Not that we had a lot of good sales. I suppose some of the meat and service deli sales might be good if you're into seafood and specialty cheeses, but I don't follow the pricing on that so I don't know. We had soda for a really good price, coke and pepsi 12pk 4/$9.00 when you got 4.

Also, we picked these up today:

I'm not the fan, Victor is. But I dragged him to Harry Potter, so I'm going to see this. I didn't quite grasp the first one. I suppose you need to know about computers to fully understand it. If you don't know anything about computers you could see it as a neat movie anyway. But the problem for me is that I'm somewhere in the middle. I know just enough to have a vague idea of what's going on, but I know so little that at times it was frustrating and confusing cause I was trying to view it  both ways, when in fact I gather you kinda need to see it one way or the other. Mind, I've only seen it once so I might not even really know what I'm talking about. And it's not like I'm dreading seeing it, the soundtrack is very nice, and I did enjoy the first movie.

One more thing. Looking at my google ads is fun. They mostly advertise dairy or cooler products and the one on the side was advertising bookshelves. I guess it really can tell what I talk about the most.

when I'm old I'll be amazed at what I was able to endure

I went in to work yesterday morning and put my bag in the cooler. I heard the sound of someone filling milk and took a look. It was Dustin. What was he doing there so early, he wasn't scheduled until 1! So I went to check the schedule and... I'm off today! I work tomorrow. I missed out on sleep!

I had to go back later to do my order after ads came in.


Today was awful. Bret was there at 6 when I got there, and he was in a bad mood. He paged over the intercom that everyone needs to get their pallets outside if they're taking them outside because we don't need people taking their **** in and out of the store all day. Yes, he swore over the thing.

I had to wait till nearly 7 to get started putting my pallets on the floor to let the janitors clean the aisle I was to put them down. I had my entire load back there from yesterday. Robert didn't do anything. But is anyone really surprised? I had 10 boards to pull out. One was wall deli. Which they had five people over filling wall deli. Wish they'd thought maybe I could use some help. I was going to put my stuff down aisle 10 and Zhaun said no, aisle 11, so I was telling him he'd just told me aisle 10, and then he walked by a moment later and said aisle 10's good. Ok, whichever. I got that done and Paula was there and said she'd get me some help. Which I was so thankful for. She stayed and helped me and she got Todd in there and Greg the delivery guy was waiting to get the milk load in so he came back and helped too. They only worked their own product but it still shaved about an hour's worth of time off what I had to do.

Then I was putting my stuff back in the cooler when I ran my shin into a wheeler.

The whole area around it is kinda painful so I was unable to shave properly around it. I got this at about 8:30 or 9 and I took the picture around 6. So it's had some time to heal. Eh. It's just another scar to add to the pile. If you walked into work and lined us up and had us roll up our pant legs probably almost everyone has scars on their shins at the exact same level off the floor. We've all tripped over wheelers. I didn't even bother telling anyone. Though as I was bandaging it Bret called me to aisle 10 to get my stuff off it.

I was filling yogurt when Bret yelled at me to go make room for a local milk company to put their stuff in. They weren't supposed to be in the store till January, but apparently Bret told corporate that we'd have it in by tomorrow. They're not set up as vendors. So we had to pay it out through the service desk. I was panicky because I was going to put them in the egg nog door, but we finally decided to take out a door of 2% and put them in there. I don't want them. I don't have room for more milk backstock. They want their empty crates separate. I don't have room for that either! *sigh* Then Dustin came and told me Bret said for us to hand mark them cause they're not in the system. So I first had to ask Virginia if we could put them in the system because I wasn't hand stickering all of those. She said yes. So I asked Bonnie if she had an invoice and she sent me to ask Bret, who sent me to the desk. He was saying I could just go next door to Super 1 and find out their prices and then mark ours 10 cents cheaper, but I said I'd check with the desk first. So I got up there and Pam tells me the guy never picked up his money so Deana was going to put it in the safe. I got the invoice and asked Bret what prices cause it was just the costs no the retail. He said to go 5 cents over the cost, which is insane, so I took it back and asked Virgina to come talk to me when she got a moment. Then Pam called me and said she was going home and needed the invoice to put with the money order. So I had to write the prices down and she came back to get the invoice. I was telling Bonnie that at 5 cents over cost we would be out by tomorrow and it would be all Bret's fault. Then I was able to catch Virginia right before she went home and she needed something to link the milk to my department so I got some eggs but they were on sale so I started to get butter instead but remembered that was department 02 and I needed to link it to department 05, so I got some juice and went back and she said it was all in the system. So I had run around like that for nothing. The prices are fairly cheap, cheaper than Meadowgold and certainly cheaper than Darigold. But still more expensive than Smith's brand.

I don't actually remember most of today, it's kind of a blur of motion. I do know that I decided since I was out of bread and had only brought candy and didn't have anything to read with me that I would skip my break and so I did. At one point I thought the shelf was swaying a little and then realized the shelf was one of the kind that wouldn't be able to sway, so it was my eyes. I started feeling a little shaky, probably from lack of anything real to eat. I finally went home around 4:30. Dustin came in at 2. So I worked 6:00-4:30. I go back at 3:30, a compromise. Zhaun wanted me in at 3, but I was scheduled at 4, and when he said 3 I almost burst into tears and he said 3:30 would be ok too. It's 6:43 now, and I'm going to feel awful tomorrow. I should have been in bed at 6 at the latest. But I wasn't going to be able to sleep. Besides I needed dinner and a shower and time to let my hair dry.

We got new shirts and name badges, as well as new aprons. The name badges are ok, I am glad to get a new one. I never wear mine except for when company comes so it gets rubbed around in my lunch bag. The new aprons are awful, only two pockets. My current one has 3. The shirts are ok. I almost ended up with an XL cause we were out of everything else and I was ok with that, I was like, "*shrug* I have a sewing machine." But Julie said I could have hers since her new one was a large. Yes, Julie can have the XL, she needs it more than I. She's quite a bit larger than I am. Not really fat-fat, but overweight. The shirts are pull-over and have three or four buttons at the top. It kinda reminds me of long underwear fabric. And I can't remember right off if mine is long or short sleeved. I hope it's long sleeved or I'll need arm warmers of some kind. Still red. Which is better than the yellow I feared we'd have to suffer with but worse than the green I'd hoped for.

My kitties always make me feel better.

Might be running out of milk

As I walked in the door Bret was there and said to fill dairy up. When I got back there I found that it was full up. Whatever. I did shelf reviews and filled eggs. Then I took out the empties, which resulted in snow in my shoes and my feet were damp and cold the rest of the day. My socks squished a little when I stepped just right and my feet were kinda tingly and cold.

Anyway, Bret was on rampage, as usual. Had this happen:
Zhaun, "Did you go check?"
Me, "Check?"
Bret, "Yeah, I called you to check about four times."
Me, "...four times???"
Bret, "Ok, more like two. Where were you?"
Me, "I just came back from the bathroom, otherwise I've been in the cooler. I only heard you call once and Deana said she didn't need me."
Bret, "Oh, ok."

And with the slushy snow outside the jack brought in slush with it. I cleaned up after myself and pushed it all outside. Nonfoods, however, chose not to. Bret got upset about that and started yelling at me so I explained it was nonfoods, and when he called Dennis back to take care of it Dennis tried to say it was my fault. They didn't buy it though and Dennis had to clean it up.

I also found fake snow in the box crusher.

The garbages were seriously overflowing but I only emptied one of them. Someone had put two bags of bags on top of it, so I put them on a bale so we could send them back to be recycled. As I was dumping the garbage the bag ripped and someone had to help me get it into the compactor. Course there was icky wet stuff in the bag and my hands got gross.

I was in front of yogurt and had my arm up and someone reached under my arm and across my front to get something. They only acknowledged my existence with a "excuse me" after I cried out and jumped back.

I filled yogurt for some hours before Zhaun and one of the corporate guys told me to fill coffee mate. Ok, sure, I suppose the rest of the yogurt section can wait. So I went to go do that and the corporate guy told me to face. Ok... why? There was no reason for that. It was 5:00. Busiest day, busiest time. By time I got done facing, IF I ever got done facing what with waiting forever for people to move so I could face, I would have to start all over again cause it would be destroyed by the customers. And the amount of people who lurk around me and watch me fix something and then go behind me and mess it up and just walk away is astounding. It's especially bad when they smirk and go, "I'm messing up your pretty work!" Yes, you are, mind fixing it when you're done, it's not hard. But anyway, by the point he told me to do that I was so miserable and upset. Zhaun had told me to stay as late as it takes. It took 45 minutes to face. I didn't end up cleaning the milk shelves, doing the paperwork, or even printing the shelf reviews. I didn't do Zhaun's shelf review. But, oh, it's so important to waste time facing. Just cause someone important says it on a whim. I was just upset, so I started crying. But I couldn't really cry because I was out on the floor. I told myself I could cry when I got back inside the cooler, and calmed myself with saying to myself, "I am a robot, I feel nothing, I am nothing, I am robotic," etc. By time I got back to my cooler I didn't end up crying.

The cottage cheese and sour cream that was supposed to be on sale on the ROP ad aren't. They're the same price they've been for the past month or two. Great. I more than tripled my order for tomorrow. I guess we won't run out of that!

We will, however, run out of milk. In the last day or two people have suddenly gone insane. I doubt I'll make it through to tomorrow afternoon even. I'm not sure what will happen. Being only Monday I might only be in a little trouble. If I run out again on Wednesday, which when I run out on a Monday there's a 99.9% chance I'll run out again on Wednesday, it'll be much worse. Much, much worse. So I hope those customers truly enjoy every last drop of their precious milk. It's not like they're buying it for Christmas, my latest date is only the 22nd, and I mostly have 20s on the shelf right now. If it were just the whole I'd say it was for baking purposes, but no one wants skim this time of year... this year being the only exception in the 5 years I've done this. And 2%, I'm nearly out of that too. I almost want to say I was shorted because there's no way I should have as little as I do. I need to look at my orders and see if they might have misread my writing because I should not have so little. Maybe I can turn this on MeadowGold. If they did misread my writing I can fiddle with the original order to make it more clear and then show it and the invoice to them and say, this is all they sent me, but here's what I ordered. Yes. I knew if I thought hard enough I could weasel out of it. If I wasn't so sick I'd have thought of it much sooner and might have been able to fix it for Tuesday by calling Paula and having her bump up my order. Eh, I have a ton of half gallons I can cover my holes up a little.

ick

It seems I had something important to say but I can't imagine what it is. I did want to exclaim that I slept until 8:00!!! Then again, I did stay up late to finish reading my book, and then I had trouble getting to sleep, and then I was awake during the night for a bit, and I had trouble sleeping in general due to my nose being plugged up on one side and then the other and back and forth and I had to keep trying to find some way vaguely comfortable to sleep.

I figure after Christmas, and maybe New Years, we'll start gathering stuff we need to buy for moving. That way we have all my overtime and holiday pay checks saved up. That will also be when we take down Christmas decorations so we can organize the shed a little and make room for things like woodstove piping, and inside the house we'll have the corner where the tree is to put stuff.

And I did finish my book, Green Rider book 1. It was fantastic, as always. I believe this is the third or fourth time I've read it. I always understand it a little more every time I read it. This time was because I know what happens in book 3. Oh, I can't wait for book 4, it's titled Blackveil Forest and the picture on the cover is tantalizing. I've got book 2 out now but I haven't started it yet.

I suppose in a few moments here I should get some lunch in me. I just ate breakfast an hour ago, so it feels weird to be eating again so soon, but I know if I don't I'll be hungry after only an hour or two at work and will have to suffer until my break at 3. I hate this shift. I don't know why he didn't give me 10-6, on Sunday that's all that's needed. Just that extra hour would make all the difference. On my 11-7 days I don't get to sleep until after 9:00 and then I'm exhausted the next day. And today of all days. We have that ROP ad breaking and you know I'll have to spend an hour hanging tags. And I need to get some of my milk shelves washed. And spend an hour doing shelf reviews. And getting my paperwork all caught up, which takes 30 mins at least. Plus getting the shelves full. And Sunday's always one of the busiest days. And bringing me in at 11 is just stupid on Sundays because I need the early morning hours to get everything done before the hoard shows up. Cause between 10 and 12 the number of customers in the store slowly starts to triple. Customers are just so much nastier on Sundays for some reason, not just at our store, it's everywhere. I always end up having anxiety while doing the shelf reviews because of them. They're always everywhere, like mindless ants. They stand in my way for stupid reasons like checking their lists, even though they know I'm waiting to get where they are.

Like the other day when I had a wheeler of eggs and I was in the middle of the aisle waiting for this couple to move and the woman kept looking at me then proceeding to take her time and drag her heels and when they finally deemed it necessary to leave they glared at me cause I was in their way and they had to all the way around me.

Oh, my head hurts.

Home Early

I got to work around 8 and went in search of Zhaun. I found Julie and Bret and asked them what I was supposed to be doing today. They didn't know so me and Julie went and asked Zhaun. Julie was saying I could just go home to save hours but Zhaun told me to go see if dairy needed me. They asked if I was tired and I said I had been sick the last few days. So I went and broke down a pallet of freight from yesterday, offloaded grocery, put out a few cases of sour cream and butter, helped Bonnie do her reclamation, re-checked my order, submitted some discontinued items to be un-discontinued, and then went home. I managed about 3 hours. It is good to be home. I'm on the runny nose portion of being sick now. And I'm coughing a lot.

Victor has continued in his plans to go out shopping for me for Christmas. He's going to bring home taco bell. But for now I'm going to have chicken ramen, read my book a little, clean the house a bit, and probably I'll settle down and play some Naughty Bear. The other night I did an Invisibility challenge and spent 2 hours on it. I got a super special blue fire trophy. And I placed 1,700-something on the leaderboards, which I believe I usually average in the teens or twenties on there. And if I wasn't so tired and it wasn't nearly 9:00 I probably could have done better. I plan to go back and redo it. By the end I was so tired I was hiding in the trees and just shooting the bears to death. Not creative at all but it got the job done. If I was more alert I would have snuck into the house and sabotaged things for them to fix. Oh, well.

Boney was really happy that I came home early, he ran up to the door full speed and when I picked him up he camped out on my shoulder for a while.

so sick and tired

Yesterday when I got in to work Dan was there and had broken down the milk load and was working on stuff in the cooler. So I did the milk order. Zhaun was there and was under the delusion that corp would be coming in at midnight. Yeah. Right. But whatever, he said to stay as long as it took. I ended up staying till 8. So I worked 11-8. I felt miserable from being sick. I ended up taking ibuprofen an hour or two after I got there. And my mouth was dry, I had to keep drinking water. Bret was freaking out about the yogurts being empty because for some reason Dustin hadn't filled them the night before when the load came in. I started on the yogurts around 12 or 12:30 or sometime. And I was working on them until 4:00. Wow. Well they were pretty empty.

I was almost out of large dozen eggs due to Terrie, my corp egg lady, not getting me the special I put in. So I hid eight cases in the back. I told Zhaun I would put them out last thing before I left. Anyone who asked about the eggs I told we were out, a few people I told to get rain checks. One lady lamented that she had only come into town for these eggs, but I couldn't back up and tell her I lied, so I offered her 18 packs as a substitute. I added it up at the cost per egg and then gave her the 18pk at that price added up. Someone I used to know years ago when he worked in meat dept that I was always friendly with asked about them and knowing he would understand I told him what I had done and got him some from the back. Indeed he was sympathetic.

Around 2:00 I was putting out more 18 packs to cover the hole where the dozens go this woman who was lurking around with a clipboard whom I hadn't given much notice to was next to me.
Me, "Am I in your way?"
Her, "I'm doing price checks but I don't see any dozens here?"
Me, "We're out. ...who are you doing price checks for?"
Her, "Albertson's."
Me, "We don't allow that here anymore, sorry."
Her, "..."
Me, "We just don't."
She promptly left. And the strangest thing about it was that I was completely calm. It didn't actually hit me till later that I had just kicked someone out of the store. I was going to tell Julie but every time I ran into her she was really busy. And I completely forgot about it today. It's really not such a big deal that they have to know anyway.

And speaking of people from other stores, Dennis, our old store director who is now the store director for Super 1 across the street, was in walking around, checking out the remodel. It was nice to see him again. I really wish he was still our store director. I was one of his favorites. So it was really weird when Bret showed up that I was suddenly at the bottom. The first time I ever gave serious thought to quitting was the day Bret came in. That first day Bret yelled at me for stuff that Dennis didn't give second glances to. If a department was lagging behind Dennis would grab a box knife and hop in. Bret stomps around and shouts at you, demeaning you and threatening you. Bret is a tyrant and a bully. Dennis quit because corp forced him to. They started visiting us and being harder and harder on us. Dennis ran a very good store and they hated him for it. In those last few months his wife would tell us about how he was up all night throwing up before they came to visit. After hearing this I willingly went in at 2AM to get ready for a visit. Afterward Dennis gave me a hug and said thanks. *sigh* I do miss him. I cried when he said he was leaving. It was his heart that ultimately made that decision for him. The doctor said there wasn't anything wrong with his heart, it was stress what was giving him trouble. And then we got stuck with Bret. And I have hated my job in varying degrees since. That was about some three or four years ago. In January.

Anyway, I had an Asian woman ask me for some product or other and I didn't understand her because of her accent. And I felt bad, I always feel  bad when this happens, and I didn't want to admit that I hadn't understood her so I sent her off to ask the remodel team where they moved it to. I hate when I can't understand an accent, and it's myself I hate, the person speaking can't help it.

My new floor, with it's lighter color, is going to be hard to keep clean. I mopped it yesterday and had to scrub to get the dirt off. There's nothing I can do about the scuff marks. Nothing in my knowledge anyway. I might ask the janitors sometime. They might know. Except they're Mexican so we run into the accent problem again. Edder's pretty nice about that though, so I'm sure he'd be able to help me.

Once I got home I wasn't able to go to bed till about 9. And then I was so very cold and sick. I finally was able to sleep because I made a tunnel with the blanket so I was breathing fairly warm air through it and that helped sooth me enough to give me sleep. I was still very tired this morning when I got up at 5:20.

My head is so stuffy and today my voice was weird. I had to speak slowly to be heard right. Around 8 I got very mucasy in my throat and had to go hide in my cooler while I expelled it. It was something between choking, coughing, and puking, but I got most of it out. I felt quite a bit better. Ever since I had what we all think was probably pneumonia some five or six years ago I cough up phlegm when I'm sick. For the first few years afterward I would cough it up anyway, any time of day, for no apparent reason. It's lessened in the last year or two. I still occasionally cough it up for no reason, but it's mainly only when I'm sick now.

Anyway. Corporate came in this morning, it was good to see Renee if only from a distance. I'm glad she's here. Renee's nice to me. She actually likes me. And she was very happy to know I'm ICM trained last year when she found out.

While I was ordering this woman came down to the juices to ask me where cream cheese was, and then got all huffy when she found out it was half-way back across the store and she left her cart with purse while she went to get some. Me and one of the remodel team looked at each other like, "...you left your purse here while you went halfway across the store??"

Oh, they did renumber out aisles... backwards. Aisle 1 is now Aisle 18. Aisle 18 is now Aisle 1. eek!!! I am never going to memorize that! I will be forever telling people soda's on aisle 2, when it is in fact on aisle 17! That is so weird. Why would they do that? As you're standing in the entrance to the store the numbers no longer read left to right. Sure it's ok if you're in the back of the store facing the entrance, cause then they read left to right. But it makes more sense to be able to read left to right from the entrance facing the back, because they want to get the people who first enter the store.

I do have to admit that the store's looking fairly nice. I like some of the new stuff, like the new book/magazine area, the angle of the produce tables. Also I noticed that Wal-Mart's grocery section is painted yellow as well. For being such a great store we're sure taking other people's ideas and running with them. I guess we weren't so great as they said we were. We also have the same floor as Super 1 and we have the same aisle curvies (no other way to describe them) as Super 1.

I stayed till 2:30 today. I figure by the end of this week I'll have roughly 51 hours. I am scheduled 50 next week.

The plan is to close the store at midnight, pretend that the customers haven't seen any remodel stuff we've done in the last two months, and then reopen at 8AM the next day as if it's all suddenly brand new. Our re-grand opening is set for Wednesday. The company president will be here and it's rumored that the kroger president might make an appearance. We have a ROP ad breaking on Sunday. And we're having some giveaways on Wednesday that I had to order in 500 eggs and 500 orange juices for. ugh. So I take it on Friday we'll be marking down these eggs and orange juices because there's no possible way for us to get rid of all that in one day. Also they seem to think we'll be super, insane busy the whole next week, thus my overtime. They even have me 6-2 on Thursday! Maybe we would have been that busy if they had closed the store for the remodel. But customers are used to this now. "Oh, new floors, big deal, we've walked on them this last month and a half." No one will be impressed  because they already know. Unless we have insane deals in the ad...

Speaking of which, Bret is going to check everyone's orders to see if we ordered enough. One of his biggest complaints is that I over order. Just today he told me I look really light in there I better order more. Wait, what? Did he not see the three wheelers of kroger yogurt in there? I have plenty. So I over ordered on purpose today to appease him. I'll deal with marking down all the extra some time week after next I guess.

Bad Kitty

Woke up with a sore throat. ugh. I have a fever and I'm cold. Earlier I jumped between wanting to throw up and being hungry. Victor has it a little too. A few people at work had it/have it. Excellent timing!

Cats:

Like my newest ornament?

See if you can spot the cat!

We ended up wrapping foil around the base of the tree and the stems of the bottom layer of branches. So far it seems to be working. It worked to keep Atton out of our tree when he was a kitten too.

Edit: He went up the tree again. Victor's spraying Bitter Yuck on the tree now. We'll see if that works.

Work:

They're still working on resetting dairy, but it's falling into place. It's actually not bad. There's not a lot I'll have to fix later. We're not allowed to fix anything until they leave. We have corporate coming on Friday and they'll be here till Wednesday. I had to explain to Bret why I was out of the Kroger yogurts. It's because over the weekend I was bought out. I sold 28 in one day on one of the flavors that I normally only sell 5 a day on. He said I have to expect that with first of the month, they do this every month. I said no, actually it's always the 

Yoplait, not the Kroger. He took that. Problem is they're 3/1.00 right now so what little I had leftover to face it over with was sold out.

We got a few pallets of grocery in as a balance this morning and the rest showed up around 1:00. It took till 1:45 to clear up the backroom enough to get it in. And deli/frozen pulled up around the same time. I didn't have to do anything but get the backroom cleaned up, I made Dan offload the truck. Or rather Bret told me to make Dan do it. Good. Steve was supposed to help but no one knew where he was. He was on break at 1 when I was talking to Bret and Zhaun and I didn't see him the rest of my shift and I left at 2:19. Course someone made the dump bins disappear so maybe he was around and I didn't see him.

I hear I ran out of large dozen eggs yesterday, which could not possibly be because this morning there were about 10 cases in the cooler. Unless Dustin lied knowing I would need them today. That's possible.

I have a lot of coffee mate holes because they're new items and not active yet or something. And the yogurt that's discontinued I still need to resubmit. I might get in trouble for not working harder at it, but oh well. I'll just say I'm working on it. They might not even notice anyway.

Zhaun, "Look at all these holes, your dairy is not up to acceptable standards!"

Me, "Your department isn't acceptable either."

Zhaun, "Who writes the schedule? Oh, we have grand opening next week, yeah, I think you'll love your schedule next week. Should have waited till after I wrote it. Was it worth it?"

Me, "Almost! :D"

My cooler still stank of floor fumes. But it went away later in the day. Maybe it only smells first thing when you come in because the door's been shut all night and when you have the door open and closed throughout the day it eventually goes away. Cause it did take a few hours.